Farm News

NEWS FROM THE FIELD SEPTEMBER 2018…*VIDEO INSIDE*

Friday, 5 Oct 2018 9:00

On the arable front, drilling is just about completed with only second wheats to drill. The hope is to complete this by the first half of October. Very welcome rain arrived the third week in September, which is helping germination on earlier drilled fields. This has also assisted establishment costs as plough and cultivation metal was wearing away rapidly. The rain also helped to even up the oil seed rape plants as flea beetles have been a constant problem from emergence but I think we have finally beaten the little blighters. Our malting barley has been moved to its end user and luckily our market is in close proximity therefore reducing transport costs.

With regard to livestock, we have taken delivery of another batch of calves which are fed twice daily on milk and have settled in fine as well as 28 young bulls and 16 bullocks, the latter of which are grazing happily in the dale. The weaner pigs have now been split up into groups, filling both of the specially adapted straw bedded sheds. These have been altered this season to allow movement of the pigs with minimum labour effort. We have also taken delivery of some pheasant poults which we are feeding in a pen and we are also feeding wild pheasants and other game birds in our game cover crops. The game cover strips are beneficial to other native birds especially grey partridges and tree sparrows that are in abundance and feeding off the strips.

Building work has commenced at Danebury for a grain store/general purpose store and cattle shed. These are well underway and hopefully should be completed by the end of October. Winter projects for the farm are setting up our handling and weighing cattle area so we can accurately monitor feed costs and daily live weight gains of our cattle